FILM AND FACTUAL MEDIA

The primary objective of the project is the use of factual media and documentary film screenings in order to encourage civil activism in raising awareness and strengthen the community’s immunity to violent extremism. Through a series of film screenings throughout Kosovo, combined with workshops on prevention of youth radicalization through use of social media and encouragement of active citizenship.

The project will encourage critical thinking and unconventional perspectives through critical discussions of historical events; confrontation with responsibility; addressing issues such as prejudice, ethnic intolerance, and exploitation as important activities to stimulate dialogue and active citizenship. The crucial component of this activity is the alignment of the syllabus with the visual content and training of the teachers on use of film in the classroom through provision of the audio-visual content and film guides which are developed to support educators to achieve a wide range of effective learning outcome in their use of film.

Film Guides are developed as a free resource to educators to utilize and to provide students the opportunity for meaningful engagement with the extraordinary medium of film. It also includes activities to use in the classroom after the film screening. Teachers will receive guidance and counseling through on-the-job training on the use of film during class through DokuFest program team and experienced thematic experts.

Through this exercise DokuFest will also aim to extend it’s volunteer base for the Festival, enabling youth throughout Kosovo to participate and volunteer at the 17th edition of the Festival. One of the sessions will be dedicated to skill development based on the requirements to successfully organize a complex event such as DokuFest. These include training modules for future Festival volunteers, who will be engaged to support different departments of the festival, such as Events, Workshops, Hospitality and Media.

A selected number of participants from the volunteer platform will be offered to join an extensive training program in development of human-interest video documentaries focused on youth affected by extremism through social media. This training program will be provided to at least 30 volunteer participants during the 17th edition of the Festival. The visiting professionals will be providing series of theoretical and practical workshops to the participants. Trained filmmakers, journalists and social media experts will be providing training on storytelling, whereas DokuFest will be providing training on use of camera, audio recording and postproduction. The trainings during the festival will be focusing on the established training modules of DokuFest: Story identification, approaching the character, interview techniques, building a narrative and knowing your equipment. After the Festival the participants of the training program will be invited to present and pitch their video documentary stories to a panel of professionals for further development. 4 to 6 projects will be selected to continue the process by gaining access to DokuFest’s Film Production Centre where trainees are expected to produce a detailed pre-production, production and post-production plans, including all logistical aspects of film production, after which they will be allocated with a film grant and are expected to begin the research and shooting of their films. This will be done under close supervision of workshop facilitators and Dokufest staff involved in the project. The produced films under this action will all be shown in the 18th edition of Dokufest in 2019.